SupermanFan.Net

It’s really too bad the grocery store gossip rags have sullied the name “tabloid” for everyone, because when I was growing up some of my favorite comics were tabloids. Of course I didn’t call them that; to me they were just the “big comics,” the “dollar comics” or the “giant comics.”

Even though the word has become synonymous with sensationalism and sleaze, “tabloid” is actually a term describing format, not content. It refers to publications, usually newspapers, that measure around 11×17 inches, small for a paper but wonderfully ginormous for a comic book. DC and Marvel each launched a series tabloid-sized comics at around the same time. At DC, they were “Limited Collector’s Editions” while at Marvel they were “Treasury Editions.”

One of the first standouts for me was Limited Collector’s Edition #31 (Nov, 1974). Featuring a jaw-droppingly gorgeous painted cover by pulp artist H.J. Ward and way bigger than any comic I’d ever seen, there was no way I was letting my parents out of the drug store without buying me that thing, no matter what I had to promise in return.

The contents delivered on the promise of the cover, with stories of a Superman barely recognizable to my young eyes, but nonetheless awesome. First there was a story with no title (odd in itself), drawn in a crude fashion (by, I would later learn, Superman’s co-creator Joe Shuster) with little numbers on every single panel (?) and starring a Superman who didn’t mind getting rough. At one point, he even hurls a crippled airplane to its destruction, with the pilot still aboard (”Say your prayers!”)

More jarring sequences awaited in the next story, also sans title, including an old lady getting run over by a car, and almost as shocking, Superman running away from a policeman. This one was drawn in style I liked a lot better by, as I would later learn, Jack Burnley.

Next came “The Men Who Guarded Superman,” with another revelation, Wayne Boring. This was my introduction to Boring’s Superman, with his massive barrel chest and granite jaw. In the story, Clark Kent is entrusted with a secret “power formula” by a dying scientist and finds himself saddled with a Secret Service detail assigned to guard his life. Naturally this complicates his ability to operate as Superman.

Then there is “Lois Lane’s Secret Helper,” in which Krypto (!) tries to maneuver Superman into proposing to Lois. This one, full of classic Silver Age reversals, coincidences and harebrained schemes, featured artwork by Kurt Schaffenberger, who I still say drew the prettiest Lois Lane ever. This is followed by “The Lethal Letters,” the umpteenth twist on the old “L.L.” gimmick by writer Cary Bates and artist Ross Andru, and to finish off the book, the fantastic “Origin of Superman” by E. Nelson Bridwell with amazing art by Curt Swan and Murphy Anderson (you can read it at superman.nu!)

Some tales I enjoyed more than others, but the experience of reading superhero comics as large and colorful as the Sunday funnies was incredible.

The centerpiece of the book is Neal Adams’ concept drawings for a Superman Theme Park, which it’s fair to say blew my mind. This sort of blurring of the line between reality and fantasy was the kind of thing I ate up as a kid. Was this place supposed to actually exist? Was it going to? And how could I talk my parents into taking me there? According to Mark Engblom’s Comic Coverage blog, the park (The Amazing World of Superman) was in fact tentatively planned for Metropolis, Illinois, now the home of the annual Superman Celebration, before economic realities pooped the party. Rats.

Another cool extra was Curt Swan’s “How to Draw Superman,” one of those helpful tutorials for budding comic book artists that started with a stick man, slapped on some cubes and spheres and…voila!…ended up as Superman. Easy as pie, right? I wonder if I was the only 8-year-old too embarassed to admit these “simple” instructions didn’t bring me one millimeter closer to drawing like Swan.

Capping off the book was a “3-D Table-top Diorama” on the back cover. The idea was you could cut it out and recreate the cover image in three dimensions, with Superman standing out front and the Metropolis skyline curving gracefully behind him. Of course to do it right, you needed and X-acto knife, not your standard safety scissors, so I roped my poor dad into helping on the project. I have to say it did look pretty cool propped up on my dresser, but it took me years to track down another copy of the book with an intact back cover.

Thus ended my first encounter with tabloid comics. It was love at first sight. The coming years would bring great adventures with Batman, the Justice League and the Legion of Super-Heroes, an introduction to the fascinating universes of Dick Tracy and The Original Captain Marvel and of course the epic Superman vs. Spider-Man and Superman vs. Muhammad Ali. It was a great ride until the early 80s, when the tabloids seem to have fallen out of favor, to be replaced by digest-sized comics in the “Archie” style. How we went from extra-large to extra-small in one fell swoop I may never know.

This month, I hope to explore some of those great memories here. In the meantime, if you haven’t already, you really should visit Rob Kelly’s terrific “Treasury Comics” website. With a comprehensive rundown of all DC and Marvel’s entries in the genre, it’s a virtual love-letter to these great old comics almost as fun as the books themselves. Among other cool features there, you’ll find this downloadable version of the “Table-Top Diorama” from this issue, so you can have all the fun of creating your own 3-D display, without mutilating a vintage comic in the process.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 1st, 2009 at 7:47 PM and is filed under review, tabloids, vintage clippings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.